


Five Alien Customs Susan Ivanova Wishes She Didn't Have To Know About (And One She Didn't Expect To)

by Leyenn



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:05:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn





	Five Alien Customs Susan Ivanova Wishes She Didn't Have To Know About (And One She Didn't Expect To)

**1.**

"So what's this Drazi thing called again?"

"_Hy'ujaap_," she says, making sure she gets the vowel sound properly elongated this time. She got some very unappreciative looks from Drekan when she mispronounced it last year, and for a Drazi, unappreciative is a difficult thing to get across, so he was making some effort at it.

John nods absently. "Right." He looks up at her from behind the current mountain range of paperwork taking shape on his desk. "Did you want to take a shift off? I can mark it down as an official diplomatic function..."

She smiles. "No, it's all right. I'm kinda not looking for a reason to stick around longer than I have to." Drazi revelry is a slightly painful thing to behold.

"Delenn asked me to dinner tonight," he says. "Before she has to leave for Minbar again. We have some tactical plans to look over."

"Taking Talia with you?"

"I was hoping to take both of you," he admits, smiling. She shoves her hair behind her ear.

"Tell you what. You three get started without me, and I'll join you just as soon as the naked flame dancing and snake venom cocktails are out of the way."

He looks at her like he can't quite figure out if she's being serious. She shakes her head. "Don't ask, okay?"

There's a new sort of respect in John's eyes when he says, with absolute conviction to wring it all out of her later, "Never will."

It's a kind of respect that's there again about eight hours later, when she walks politely - and even mostly upright - into Delenn's quarters, excuses herself and proceeds to quietly pass out on the couch.

  


*

  


**2.**

She doesn't believe any of them until she realises it's true. It's a hell of a thing to have to believe, although for that it's handy to have a telepath to call on and a hint of the gift yourself just to double check she's not going crazy, too.

It's true. All of it.

Now she's sitting alone, thinking, afraid to think. What she would have seen. _Who_ she would have seen. Who she'd have wished for.

Who she'd have prayed to escape seeing again.

She's glad she didn't have to admit to Talia how jealous she is of the look that's still in Lochley's eyes, or how unnerved by Lennier's silence. The whole thing is frightening. She wonders how the hell she'd get over it at all if it _had_ happened to her. She wonders how she's going to get over knowing that it didn't.

The door chime catches her by surprise: she looks up, wondering when it got to that time of the morning and who the hell might be calling. (John and Talia left her alone tonight with just a promise she'd only be drinking juice, and she's only broken that a little bit.)

"Hi," Marcus says weakly, when she opens the door. It's only then that she realises he's the one person she hasn't seen since it all happened. He looks... quiet.

Talk about frightening.

She says his name gently. He walks in at the sound of it: she steers him to the couch. He looks disappointed in the carafe on the table.

Even a silence from Lennier's got nothing on this.

"Marcus," she says, even gentler. "Marcus... who did you see?"

He cries when he tells her, eventually, whole minutes later. "William."

She puts her arms around him then, and they sit like that until John finds them late in the morning - still on the couch, Marcus with his head on her shoulder and restlessly sleeping, and the tears still drying on his face and hers.

John looks into her eyes and quietly cancels her afternoon shift, before sitting down beside her and taking her hand in his.

  


*

  


**3.**

"I'm going to kill you," she says ominously.

Standing to one side, Talia smiles without looking at her. "Susan."

"I'm going to kill him," she says, without changing tone. She doesn't have to. It's all very simple. They're going to get through this, all three of them, and then she's going to kill him.

Repeatedly.

"It wasn't my idea," John says, also without looking at her, which for him is a good thing at this particular moment, since she thinks she has a good chance of turning him to ashes when her eyes meet his. "The Minbari-"

"None of us are Minbari." She has pointed this out a few dozen times since he came to them with the idea - well, the request. More the... demand, actually. Politely worded, courteous and deferential, of course. Perfectly Minbari.

It's a demand, all the same. The Minbari are strange people, when you get right down to it. Lovely, but _strange_. The kinds of things that matter to them. Like numbers. They have a thing about numbers.

Three, it turns out, is a particularly important one.

The doors open inwards in this little sanctum, one of the larger temples on the station, and standing there in front of them is Delenn, smiling delicately and with a blessed hint of reassurance. Susan is very aware that they settled on doing this here because John was afraid she'd blow up their shuttle on the way out the _White Star_.

There are thirty-seven Minbari in the room, including Delenn, which Susan does even if her own people don't. Lennier, it turns out, is the lucky one who gets to close the doors behind them from the outside. That's nice. At least there's going to be one member of the species she can still look in the eyes tomorrow.

Three tiers of balconies rise up at either side of the room, and the circular altar with its triangular décor sits on a dais all of its own, in front of a large triangular alcove set in the wall and filled with candles. The Minbari are standing - no seats, it seems, are necessary; she wonders if they've got any idea how long this can _last_, sometimes? - in what seem like haphazard groups on those balconies, although she's sure there must be some vast importance to the arrangements. Given the amount of preparation that went into all this, it would surprise the hell out of her if there wasn't.

Delenn is wearing a long white robe Susan's seen on her once before, without the dark hair to contrast it. There's red fruit on the altar, and the Minbari look very... studious all of a sudden.

There's also - and although the glee she feels when John hesitates doesn't help the situation a whole lot, at least it makes her feel a little better - a space large enough for three in the center of the floor, marked out by three cushions like points of a triangle, only a meter or so from each other.

_Oh, hell._

She's going to kill him. They're going to get through this, and then she's going to kill him.

  


*

  


**4.**

The Narn, as a general practice, cremate their dead, and sprinkle the ashes in the incense of their temples to bring honor to those who have passed beyond. Even now, Narn reeks of it like the entire planet is a graveyard.

Susan shades her eyes from the glaring sun and holds the breather mask to her face. There are children, some barely more than pouchlings, running in the streets around her feet, their eyes and faces bare. Growing up among the ashes of the dead, so accustomed to it that they don't notice.

She's glad, suddenly, perversely, that the Narn had no living telepaths when their world collapsed into this. The past echoes of pain are enough to make her head pound and her chest heave with trying to breathe - to live through that trauma would drive any telepath to the brink of madness and probably beyond.

Fingers touch her back, and she smiles into the mask despite everything else.

_Hey. Any word?_

_You know I'd have called you._ Talia slides a hand around her hip and leans against her. "I'm told it usually takes this long. Don't worry."

She smiles. "I can't help it. I didn't think I'd be this nervous."

_You're worried about her, growing up here,_ Talia tells her. She winces. But sighs.

_I know, I shouldn't be. It's her home. I just..._

Talia kisses her shoulder. "It's only Human of you, Susan."

She snorts and chuckles. "Yeah, but that's not exactly useful of me right about-"

They both feel the reason she stops, and turns, and looks up the steps as their old friend and new acquaintance descend together. She can't believe suddenly how hard it is to breathe, and the dust has nothing to do with it.

"It's over?"

The midwife speaks too fast for her to catch up: Ta'Lon listens for a moment and then smiles and claps her on the shoulder.

"She says yes, it is over, my friend. A healthy female. Be proud!"

A grin spills onto her lips, and she isn't sure if it's hers or Talia's or even John's, although he's still hours away. "Thanks. Um, can we-"

He shakes his head that she even asks. "G'Ken has asked to see you already. Come, come," and then his hand on her elbow is propelling her up the steps and she isn't stopping him, still dazed that this is even happening.

Ten years will pass until she stands here again, at the foot of the Temple steps, until the sky is clear and the grounds are sprouting with the first new growth of lush _tepa_ grass, and they walk inside: her family, all together, through the soft scent of _j'q'eth_ incense to hear the words she had no idea she'd ever hear.

"I claim my name, I claim my self, I proclaim my faith. My name is G'Tera." And then the girl at the altar will turn and smile at her, a so very Human smile that she knows very well, from the mirror if nothing else. The next words should be said aloud, but no one will deny them this moment, not on this day.

G'Tera smiles at her and claps both small fists to her chest. _Thank you, mother, for my life._

Of all the ways to have a child, this _has_ to be the strangest. But absolutely, she thinks as she hears those words in her mind, absolutely the best.

  


*

  


**5.**

She peeks at the screen through her fingers, then screws her eyes shut again.

Yep. Just as bad as she imagined, only worse. (There are diagrams.)

Next time the Lumati come calling, John is _definitely_ handling the diplomacy side of things.

  


*

  



End file.
